YingHuoChong
by Shar-dono
Summary: .x.Spoilers for Serenity.x.Oneshot.x. The dinosaurs were much more fascinating. Fireflies, dinosaurs, the things left unsaid... and River dancing between them. Rated Spiritual because anything with River is a sort of spiritual experience.


**螢火蟲  
****Ying-Huo-Chong** _(Firefly)  
_

Malcolm Reynolds hunched forward in the pilot's seat, shoulders stooped over the glowing lights of the flight panel, although his attentions were not focused on his Firefly's navigational instruments, but in his hands.

He grunted quietly, rubbing his thumbs over a purpled, textured surface in the darkness, so engrossed that he did not hear the door slide open,

"Sir?"

Malcolm yelped and jumped out of his seat. The little plastic dinosaur he had been playing with tumbled out of his hands and rolled under the chair.

"Z... Zoe! I, uhm... I was just..." He stuttered, growing clumsy and red, and after a moment of flustering finally decided to crawl under the controls, retrieve the toy and replace it as if nothing had happened; as if he was not just now intruding upon Zoe's domain by handling Wash's things.

Zoe the First Mate stood over him with the casual, stiff-backed stance of a veteran soldier, politely ignoring his activities. _Well, if she wasn't commenting, I ain't bringing it up, _the man thought guiltily.

"Cap'n, you should get some sleep, sir. I can take over here."

Malcolm looked her over. He wanted to ask the dark woman if she was sure, if she was okay. He wanted to refuse and give her leave of all duties for some personal-time, but Zoe was right. With one man down, he could not afford to give her that time. Mal himself had been up for nearly thirty-eight hours and sorely needed rest. He nodded instead, and let her take over.

"How's the eye, sir?"

"Powerful hurt," he admitted wearily. "Be least a month 'fore it clears up."

"Doc says he's with Kaylee if anyone needs him, sir."

Silence. Then, too quickly, "IthinkI'llwaitonthat."

Zoe did not smile as Mal left, though she normally would have. She slipped into the chair – Wash's chair – and took a moment to take in the sights: the lighted switches, charts and graphs, the changeless black, and Wash's little dinosaur diorama in between.

She reached out and adjusted the little purple one. _Perfect._

The cockpit had been refitted, of course. After the damage left by the Alliance and the Reavers, Zoe was mildly surprised that there was still a ship in the rubble. They will have to find a new pilot at the next planet. The prospect of replacing Wash upset her in the soft, squishy parts of her head, but it had to be done. _Serenity_… no, _they_, needed a pilot. _Serenity_ had Hoban Washburn.

Zoe Warren sank into the pilot's seat, in the dark. The velvety universe stared back at her, indistinguishable from the comfortable lack of light in the small, sealed room. She settled backwards in the black, drifting a little. There was an uncomfortable hollow where they had tried to patch the chair. She huddled closer to it. It was almost like being with Wash. It was almost like being Wash… oh Wash…

A quiet scratching-tearing sound rippled across her vertebrae. Zoe twisted around in alarm. "River?"

It was River, crouched behind her, peeling pieces of adhesive patching tape off the back of the chair.

"He doesn't like it in the hole," she explained irately to the astonished woman. It should have been obvious. "He wants to soar."

Zoe's face shut down. It bothered her that she did not notice River until the last minute. Granted the girl was light and strange on her feet as a leaf in the wind, one might even say uncanny, she thought she would at least have heard the doors open, even if Mal had not.

"I am always here, silly," River paused in her work to cluck at Zoe, "watching, dreaming, flying…" the little lights around them played soft shadows across her up-turned face. For a moment, the new widow thought she saw Wash in that pale, innocent face and her heart jumped into her throat. "Listening… unfolding from his shell…"

River stood up suddenly and started to dance a little around the cockpit… then stopped, her brow creased dramatically. "Wait … no," she mumbled to herself, "just a bug…" Her face fell as the disappointing realisation crept fragmented across her mind. "Still a worm, no butterfly, no wings… no, no, not yet…"

Zoe watched, confused and a little awe-struck, as the babbling dancer swept down gracefully to the floor next to her and rested her head in Zoe's lap. The ship shuddered.

"Shh …shh, it's okay," River looked up around her, addressing the quivering darkness in the cockpit. "It's okay," she smiled, gently patting Zoe on the stomach, "it's love. Love keeps 'er in the air when she oughts fall down."

"What are you talking about, River?"

"That's what the Captain said," she twisted her head around to look at the plastic shadows on the edge of the main flight panel, "to the dinosaurs. He told them, he said…" her voice trailed off as the words drifted away. She knew Malcolm Reynold's speech, but the dinosaurs were much more fascinating to her than the Captain's philosophy on piloting his ship.

"They shouldn't have stopped loving." River scowled, shaking her head with school-marmish disapproval. "They forgot flying. It made the sun fall down."

This made Zoe smile. _Serenity_ shuddered around them again. It felt strangely good to smile.

River peeked curiously over Wash's chair at Zoe's well-toned tummy, as if trying to hold gaze with her covered belly-button. She stared into it with a serious expression and then laughing softly, pleased that she remembered her flying lesson so well, River skipped away.

Zoe leaned back in the pilot's seat and rested a hand against her lower abdomen. Can a psychic like River tell? She had hoped and guessed in secret for several weeks, but had been afraid to approach the doctor. Afraid of what he might say. Perhaps when her watch is over she will go to Simon and finally get that test. What will the others say?

"He knew," the crazy girl whispered confidentially from the doorway, the little gossip. "He knew, but he wants to hear you say it."

"Who? TheCap'n Knew what?"

"No!" River Tam exclaimed, exasperated. "The dinosaurs!"

"_So... how'd the Independents cut us off?"  
**"**They were using dinosaurs."_

_Firefly, "Safe"_

_**

* * *

**_

_**A/N:  
**_In _Firefly_, the ancient Chinese word for fireflies and lightning-bugs, "**蚈**" (Qian), is used to indicate the Firefly-class ships.  
"**螢火蟲**" (Ying-Huo-Chong) is the modern, common equivalent of this word.


End file.
